week5

Hi everyone.

It is hard to believe that it is week 5 already.

The most surprising thing in this week was Rubistar: http://rubistar.4teacgers.org.

When I make rubrics, it takes so much time. When you use Rubistar, you can select the task such as presentation. Then you can choose the categories such as props. You do not have to think from the beginning. This site is a big help for me. I am so happy to make my rubric by using Rubistar.

Until reading this week materials, I did not know there are two kinds of rubrics.
There are two types of rubrics, holistic rubrics and analytic rubrics.
I did not know those rubrics. I am glad that I could learn that.
As I wrote in my post, both rubrics have disadvantage and advantages. It is important for the instructor to use the appropriate rubric according to the situation.

I believe self-confidence leads learners to be successful autonomous learners. Project-based learning is very useful to build students’ self-confidence. Students can experience the joy of accomplishing the tasks. In Japan, still project-based learning is not so popular. Many people points out that the entrance examination system should change. Students are tested about their knowledge. Because of that, I think many classes are still teacher centered classroom. I am aware of the advantage of project-based learning, so I would like to implement project-based learning in my classroom.

Megumi
Japan

Week 4 Sorry Youssef

Week 4

Hi everyone.

Since I take this course, I have difficulties using new technology. I have troubles almost every week. In this week, when I tried to add my lesson plan document in the Wiki, I accidentally moved Yousself’s document into my file. I tried to move it to the original place. However, I could not find the way to move it back. I was so afraid to make another mistake. So I decided to make a new file which is titled “Lesson Plan Youssef” and put his document into that file. That was the best solution I could think of at that time. I am so sorry Youssef.

When you try to use technology into the classroom, problems just happen so suddenly. For example, computers and software do not work. Have you ever experience that? I have experienced many times. Thus I think it is important that we prepare technology alternative plans.

 Having read the posts of “Week 4 Discussion, Reading, Writing, and Vocabulary,

I found a favorite website: http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/ . It has variety of materials. It provides listening materials as well as vocabulary aid. I think that is the advantage of this site. It is easy to find the materials according to students’ level.  This is another good point of it. I will surely use this site in my classes.

I enjoyed reading the description of issues in the project task #3. It is interesting to learn how other teachers analyze the problems. It is helpful task for me. I now clearly see the problems of my class. I am so excited to learn how other teachers try to solve problems by using new technology.

Megumi

Japan

Week 3

 

Hi everyone.  This is what I learned form week 3 materials.

Conferencing Topic: Week 3 Discussion –Aural/Oral Skill Building:

Having read coursemates posts on Aural/ Oral Skill Building, I was surprised to see there are many recommended sites to develop listening skills. Some of my students told me that it is hard for them to find suitable sites for listening practice. For instance, RealEnglish (http://www.real-english.com) and Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab: http://www.esl-lab.com/ shows the level of listening materials. My students should be able to find suitable listening materials from these sites. Until this time, I did not know there is a site which even provides Pre-listening, While-listening and Post-listening activities such as Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab: http://www.esl-lab.com/. It was a good surprise. I will use this site for my classes.

Delicious com:

Delicious page is very useful. Even if when I find good websites to use for classes, I don’t save the list of websites. So it always takes time to recall my memories to find the sites which I found before. By using Delicious com, I do not have to do that anymore.

Danna gives me detailed explanation of making a page on Delicious com. I thought it was easy to follow the steps. I bought my computer about 5 years ago. I did not update Internet explorer. Thus my computer told me I should install Internet explorer 11. To use Internet explorer11, I have to install windows7 support pack 1. I took me a few hours and it did not work out. In the end, I went to my parents’ house to borrow their computer to make my Delicious page. I learned that the computer setting is also important to use technology in the classroom. I should update my computer.

Read final projects:

I enjoyed reading final projects of former participants. It gave me a whole picture of this course. I especially interested in Aleyda Linare's project. She shows the advantages of using a bog in a class. Blogging enhance the reading skills, writing skills, and communication skills.  I especially liked her final step. Students were given the materials to study grammar in the first step. They had to find the materials to study grammar by themselves in the last step. This step developed student learning autonomy. I think learning autonomy is very important, because instructors cannot teach everything in a class.

 Megumi

 Japan

Week 2

Hi everyone.
 I learned a lot from my coursemates this week too. Websearching: Having read coursemates posts, I found that some of them already knew many types of search engines, and already used them in their teaching practice. I think that is impressive since I did not know many search engines until this week. Many of them agreed that Google is the wonderful search engine to get a rich list of results. I agree with this idea. However, each search engine has advantages and disadvantages. Therefore, I think users should select the search engines according to their needs. I find “Better Web Searching" by Deborah Healey is very useful. I even did not know the usage of quotation marks. I realize that my students need to obtain more online research skills including how to type in precise search words including the usage of quotation marks. I did not have a course to build up online research skills in our school. I wonder if my coursemates’ schools have such a course in their school. I will find a time to teach online research skills in my classes in the future.

ABCD Behavioral Learning Objective:
I had feedback from Donna, and I was able to improve my ABCD Behavioral Learning Objective. You sometimes think your objective is clear enough, but your colleagues think it is not clear enough. I think it is important that instructors share objectives of classes and do the peer observation of classes. Then instructors can improve their objectives and their teaching practice. This year I did the peer observation once in June, and I will do that in September.

Project task#1- describe a class:
Describing a class is the important first step to improve my teaching practice. Now I can see my students’ needs clearly. By implementing a new technology tool into my class, I hope I can find a way to meet their needs.
Megumi Japan